in the process of legislation (through the PLC) and policy-making (through participation in government). General elections could provide Palestinians with a chance to elect representatives who are more able, have more integrity, and are more ready to fight corruption. General elections have been due since May 1999, but the political and military conflict with Israel, particularly since September 2000, created objective obstacles to the holding of such elections, such as an extensive system of road blocks and checkpoints and sections of the separation wall that intrude into PA territory. The PA leadership (that is, the Fateh leadership) has been unwilling to call for elections even within their own party. Municipal elections have been due since 1997. Although the frequent incursions in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and the armed confrontations have made any serious progress towards presidential and legislative elections unrealistic, the holding of local elections is widely seen as both plausible and crucial for fighting corruption and reducing the inefficiency of centrally appointed municipal and village councils.
Calls by political and civil society groups for local elections have been insistent and regular. Nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of Palestinian adults surveyed in March 2004 said there is discrimination in the provision of services by local government councils, and 70 per cent said that family and kinship connections play a part in appointments in local government. Some 69 per cent of the public believe corruption exists in local government councils.4 The holding of general and local elections is an essential part of the reform agenda, and a certain degree of change may now be inevitable. The prime minister announced that the council of ministers had decided in a joint meeting with the National Security Council under the chairmanship of President Arafat (held in May 2004) to start holding local elections in August 2004, after making the necessary amendments to local government election law. The meeting also decided to ask the PLC to approve a general election law, and to ask the Quartet Committee to work with the PA to create suitable conditions to hold general elections, and to set a date for them. Jamil Hilal (TI Palestine)
Further reading Aman – The Coalition for Accountability and Integrity, Apparatuses for Overseeing, and Systems of Accountability in the Palestinian Public Sector (Ramallah: Miftah publications, 2003) (in Arabic) Civic Forum Institute and Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Reform: A Palestinian Perspective – Between Reality and Aspirations (Ramallah, 2003) Jamil Hilal et al., The Criminal Justice System in Palestine (Beirzeit: Institute of Law, 2003) Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS), Social Monitor, issue No. 6, (Ramallah, 2004) TI Palestine: www.aman-palestine.org Notes 1. The ‘Quartet’ of Middle East mediators comprises the European Union, the Russian Federation, the United Nations and the United States; four other bodies involved in negotiations are Japan, Norway, the World Bank and the IMF.
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